It's like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, Aaron's beard, it went down to the skirts of his garments. As the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord Yahweh commanded the blessing, even life, forevermore.

Networking, we hear this term a lot these days and I guess it's used a lot in the computer industry but it's also used where people are concerned and I looked up one of the definitions of networking. I don't normally like to quote definitions but maybe this will help. And one of the definitions is that networking is an association of individuals or people who have a common interest but it's formed to provide mutual assistance, to help one another, or helpful information, things like that.

A group of people are coming together to work together and to help one another. Now I believe the church of God is a network and in that network each person stands in their own right as individual but yet each person also depends on each other. Everybody's got one main interest and that is that we need to extend God's kingdom in the earth and we need to help one another to do that job.

This is networking God's way. This is the purpose of the church of God. Now probably one of the best illustrations in the natural of a network is the human body and actually the scriptures have used the human body to describe networking because the church is called the body of Christ.

It's kind of like the network of Christ but a body helps us to understand it so much better. See because our body is made up of all different members and each part has a unique function but each part, each member also depends on the other members and all members have to work together to make sure that it works to keep the body functioning. Sounds like a network to me, doesn't it? Okay.

Now here's the thing. What one member does automatically affects all the rest of the members. You just need to cut your finger and your whole body's in pain, not just your finger.

All sorts of things are taking place in your body. All the parts are working together and saying, hey, we've got to do something here. There's a problem.

We've got to do something. This is God's kind of network and because it's set up in this way, it works very efficiently. It keeps this physical body healthy and capable of going out and doing many, many different things.

We need unity in the body in order to network correctly and that Psalm said, it's so wonderful when brothers can work together in unity because when they work together in unity, it brings the anointing of God. Just like the anointing ointment that was put on Aaron when he was anointed to be a priest, it poured right down on him, down onto his hair and his head and his beard and right down all of his clothes until he was covered in oil. When we function together in unity as a network, the blessing of God is released on his network, his church, his body, which is us.

God wants to flow out, but that network, that body must be working in total efficiency. How do we get this to happen? How do we get a bunch of people from all sorts of different walks of life, different temperaments, different desires, different genders, different ages? How do we take a mob like this, throw them together and get them to function in unity as one person? Well, we have to follow the same principles that God built into the human body. You see, firstly, the reason that the human body works so well is because every one of the members is linked to one main part.

That's the head. That's the brain. It controls everything.

See, the signals are sent and the control comes from here and as each member of the body relates to the head, they automatically function together in unity and harmony and they also relate to each other and it works by a system of messages. The brain sends messages down to the parts, the parts send messages back up to the brain and things begin to happen and keep everything in order. The members send messages to each other as well.

They work together, perfect harmony and unity, perfect networking and when that happens, the blessing of God is present. Well, now, there has to be some kind of control here because if everybody's shouting at the same time, who's going to hear a word? We put a bunch of people together and every one of them shouting at the same time, talking at the same time, communicating with one another at the same time, we have a very loud noise but actually not much flow of harmony, do we? And so, the body actually has two ways of communicating messages. The one comes automatically down from the brain and it goes through what we call the nervous system.

The nervous system works on electrical impulses. It's direct, it's fast, it's immediate communication. The brain sends an electrical signal down to your hand and says, close, instant, instant, happens immediately.

The very strongly controlled network, like a series of wires and electrics and it works instantly and very powerfully. Now, spiritually, if we're going to look at this in a spiritual sense, God does this by sending out revelation and principles of the word. He speaks his word immediately and when he speaks his word, he communicates his word to different people.

He gives revelation and immediately, there's action, things begin to happen. But there's actually another way that the body communicates and it's not so direct. It's actually chemical rather than electrical.

It's a more slightly indirect communication and it takes place a lot more slowly. It actually takes place through our glandular system. There's a little thing at the base of our brain called the hypothalamus and the hypothalamus picks up the signals from the brain and sends out chemical signals, tells different glands of our body to begin to secrete different chemicals, which are known as hormones.

I'm not here to give you a medical lesson, but just give you a basic understanding of how it works. Now, these chemicals, they begin to flow out and interact with one another and it doesn't happen quite as fast as the electrical signal. It takes a bit of time.

It takes a bit of a flow. This gland releases that hormone, which makes the other hormone do something else, which makes the other hormone do something else and they kind of intercommunicate together and after a while they begin to get the message. Hang on, there's something new taking place here.

Something is happening and all of these things start to intercommunicate with one another and it begins to influence one another. How do we do this? By flowing in the love of the Lord. By flowing in harmony and in the beauty of his love and the gentleness of his spirit, we gradually begin to influence one another.

You see, it all still comes from the head communicating downwards. Sometimes by direct revelation, sometimes by just the flow of his love being poured into this network so that it functions together in perfect harmony. The church is his body.

We are his body and as individuals we come together in his presence, become united together in the spirit and become this perfect network. But the communication is very important. We have a head and his name is Jesus.

He is the head and if we all learn to relate properly to the head, we relate properly to each other. If we all obey the instructions from the head, we don't do something that's out of order, we don't do something that's in conflict with one another. But it doesn't always happen that way, does it though? Sometimes there's conflict.

The left hand's fighting the right hand, you know. As we say, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing. The reason the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing is because one of them's not listening to the head.

So we've got to learn the first step of flowing in this perfect harmony and unity in God's network is we've got to learn to tap into the head and hear his voice. Now, how does he speak? When's the last time you heard God saying, hey, this is what I want you to do? How many people are capable of this? Not many. It's not impossible.

God wants to communicate to us. He's given different things to communicate. He's given us his word which is written down.

But God always works with people. He uses human channels. So God communicates just as even in the body, communicating from the head to the hypothalamus to the glands, communicating from the head to the different nerves, the main nerves which branch out of the other nerves.

God communicates through channels. In the church, God uses human channels. And to keep it in order, he set what we call a chain of command.

You know, even the army knows you've got to have a chain of command. You don't just have a bunch of soldiers. You've got to say, we're going to attack the enemy.

What do you think we should do, guys? And a thousand guys say, I think we should do this. Each one has a new idea. Can you imagine an army like that? It can't happen.

You've got to have the guy at the top who says, OK, guys, this is what we're going to do. Passes the command down to the lower level officers. And they say, OK, this is how we're going to implement what the head said.

And starts to pass it down. And eventually the poor private usually does most of the work. But yeah, each person has a part to play.

But there's a chain of command, you see. There's an order that we must follow. And if we think we're going to come into this network and not be responsible to each other or not be under some kind of authority, we're going to have chaos.

We're going to have confusion. We're going to have rebellion in the body. We're going to have conflict taking place.

OK. Now, here's the problem. OK.

We can hear from the Lord from the head in three different ways. Three different ways. Firstly, we can hear from him directly.

Every one of us can hear from the Lord directly. We can relate directly to the head. Without anybody else being present, without discussing with anybody else, we can go straight to him.

See, and then we can receive via his chain of command. We can receive by the leaders, particularly in the fivefold ministry that God set in place, the authority that God's placed in the church. We can receive as God speaks to the leaders and the leaders pass down.

We see that way back in the day of Moses already, where Moses heard from God, gave the word to the people. And God in these days is still raising up apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. You say, but I don't need to listen to a human being.

I want to listen to the Lord. God can tell me what to do. God can teach me.

You just stepped out of the network. Yes, God can teach, and you should. And you should be hearing him all the time.

But if you refuse to receive through the channels that God has set in place, you've stepped out of the network. You've stepped in rebellion and said, I can do this thing on my own. You know, I'm a hand, and you know, I know how to function as a hand.

Why the heck do I need to be joined to this stupid arm? And who needs the leg anyway? Unless with that big mouth, I can handle this. Yeah, you can. You can.

But you know, what's this hand going to do? What's this hand going to do? I can do all sorts of things. You know, I can pick up a piece of food. Yeah, but if there's no mouth to feed, what's the point? See, you're limited in what you can do.

We need to realize that God has set in the body channels of communication and channels of command. And if the body is to function in a unity and to network together properly, we've got to recognize those who God has put above us and those who God has given to help us to hear his voice. God doesn't always speak everything to you directly.

He speaks, yes, via the head, but the head doesn't talk directly. It goes via. Even if the brain is sending a signal to the nerve, you know that nerves come all the way down through other parts before it got there? Never ever think we can stand on our own.

And then we can receive from the Lord, not only via the head directly, not only via the leadership and those that God has placed above us in the chain of command, but we can actually receive from fellow members. We can receive from one another. We say, well, I'm more spiritually mature than that person.

How can he teach me anything? How can he minister? See, God's made the body in such a way and he's made the network in such a way that we all should be communicating with one another all the time. We all should be communicating with him all the time and we all should be receiving down his chain of command all the time. And when we put those three together, we have everything we need from the Lord.

And we're helping one another, we're ministering to one another and we're standing in unity. Okay, now, doesn't always work that way, does it? Sometimes problems take place. Okay, there are problems in communication.

And there's two main problems that take place that I see in the body of Christ and that causes real difficulties and messes up this network. You see, each member should be communicating upwards to the head via the channels that God's given. And each member should be receiving communication from the head downwards through the channels that God's given.

Okay, so there's an upward communication and there's a downward communication. See now, what happens if this little member decides, I'm not interested in the downward communication. I don't need that.

What if this member decides, I don't see why I should communicate upwards. I can do this by myself. Here's what happens.

We have two different things that occur which I call spirits. A spirit, an attitude, a whole way of doing things. You see, if you will not receive that downward communication, I don't need this.

I can shut it off. I know enough. I can handle this myself.

If you cut off the communication from above, it produces what I call the spirit of independence. I'm independent. I don't need anybody else.

I can handle this all myself. See, there's a little hand going off to do his own thing. I can handle this.

Spirit of independence. The member tries to go it alone. The member will not listen to leadership.

Why are you from the Lord directly by myself? Thank you, I don't need you. Causes conflict in the body of Christ, causes division, breaks the unity, and when it does that, it stops that blessing, it stops that flow of that ointment down from the head. It will bring the blessing to the body.

The second thing is when you say, I will not receive upward communication. God's put me in this place of leadership. Therefore, I will command, I will order, send my commands downwards, and you member, you'll do what you're told because I am in charge.

Call that the spirit of control. I don't care what you think, but I want you to know what, I don't care what your problem is. I don't care what your opinion is.

I don't need your feedback to tell me what you think as a body. I will decide as the head what I think you should do, and you just do as you're told. See leaders like that? Yeah.

How high do you need to be to do that? Not very high. Not everybody who has a spirit of control actually is high up there. In fact, a lot of the time, the high-ups know where they're at, and they're quite confident in their authority.

It's the little wannabes down at the bottom here who want to be the hotshots, and when they're given a position of authority, they use that to control other people, and what happens is people begin to impose their will on others, and they just don't listen. They don't care. They don't receive communication and say, I will decide what's happening here.

You see it in all walks of life. You see it in the work situation. You see it in the marriage relationship.

There's got to be intercommunication upwards and downwards and sideways and amongst each other for us to flow as the efficient network and to come into the unity that will cause the blessing of God to come down in this network. You are, if you are a believer, you are a member of a network. Okay.

This means you're dependent on three things. Firstly, you're dependent on the head, which is Christ himself. You're dependent on those leaders that God has put over you and him and his chain of command.

You're also dependent on one another. Don't ever think you can stand on your own. If I cut this hand off from my body, it starts to wither away and die, just like the branch of a tree.

You cut it off, it withers away and dies. We've got to learn to relate to the Lord. We've got to learn to see those that he's put over us, and we've got to learn to identify with each other.

That brings the unity. That brings the kind of network. Unity is the key.

Unity flowing as the one, one heart, one mind, one soul, one purpose. And I think probably the best thing the Lord's given is that bond of perfection. That's the term the Bible calls it, and that's love.

Love is called the bond of perfection. It's the maturity. Perfection in scripture means mature.

It's the most mature and perfect way of bonding people together is in the love of the Lord. And so when we can learn to come in harmony, when we can learn to recognize one another and appreciate how important we are to each other, do never ever think one member's not important. Never think, well, I'm the big shot member here.

Yeah, I'm the mouth. Who needs anything else? You know, just take the eyes away, and you won't even see who you're talking to. You cannot function without one another.

We need to recognize one another. We need to recognize that God has put us together, and as we relate upwards to him and listen, as he sends his communication down through his network, wow, the blessing of God begins to come. The power of God begins to get manifest, and we rise up, and we finally fulfill what he's called us to do, to go and show the world, to bring his power to the world, to bring his love to the world.

He changed this world because of the communion of God to the manifest. Where do you stand today? You say, well, I don't need to be part of the network. Well, then, are you born again? Are you born again? Then you are a part of the network.

Scripture says you're in the body of Christ. You know, I don't need to go to church. I don't need to go to church to be part of the network.

No, you don't. You could just tie this hand up behind your back and just leave it there, and it still belongs to the body, isn't it? It's not doing very much, is it? You don't need to go to church, but you need to relate to the church, and the church is what? The church is not the organization. The church is Jesus' head, where two or three people are gathered together in harmony, together in unity, in my name, relating to me.

I'm right there, and my blessing is right there. That is where the church is. The church is where every believer is, and if it's convenient to come together into a public place to worship God together, the harmony and the unity come, and the blessing of God come, and sometimes there's an increase in the anointing, because each person brings their little piece and pulls it together, and pow! We've got a raging inferno going.

So don't ever think you can go out on your own. Even if you are for a season out on your own, chances are you've been sent out from the body. You've been sent out from the network, and you're still linked.

Even though you're standing out there doing your own thing, you're still linked to the network, because if you cut that off, you will die. Now, I don't know exactly who God is addressing today, but the Lord has been putting this whole concept of the network in my heart very strongly, and you know, it's so easy for us to have divisions in the body of Christ, and you know, sometimes we can't avoid it, because each of us think in different ways, we serve the Lord in different ways, we worship in different ways. In fact, some people even like to sing different kinds of music when they worship.

Nothing wrong with that, but we must never cut ourselves off to the point where we want nothing to do with other believers, because they believe different to us, because they do things different to us. They are our fellow members in the body of Christ, and if we can learn to bring that unity and that harmony, and the unity is where? In Christ. You know, I can't believe, I can't accept the doctrine that person believes.

That's a lot of heresy. How can I even be friends with such a person who believes such a radical doctrine? Scripture tells us that one day we'll come to unity of faith. It may not even happen in this lifetime.

One day we'll come to a place where everybody believes the same thing, but in the meantime, God says this, maintain the unity of the Spirit until we come to the unity of the faith. Your responsibility is to maintain the unity of the Spirit, to keep your heart open in the Spirit of Christ, in the Lord, to identify and recognize each one. Just learn to get in the flow.

Learn to flow in that network. You know, eventually, before you know it, suddenly this hand may find that it needs the other hand, may find that it needs another, and who knows, even that diseased member there who believes those radical doctrines, they want someday, used by God, to actually meet a need in us, and to minister in us. Where do you stand today in the body of Christ? Are you flowing in unity? Are you part of the network? If you're not, get in line.

Listen to the head. Listen to those whom God is using to communicate to you. Listen to your fellow members of the body of Christ, and communicate back.

Flow together as one. We're going to see the kind of church that Jesus wants to come back for, and I believe we should all be striving towards building that kind of network. That's God's perfect network.

Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your Word. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that your Word can be a sword, or it can be a soothing or healing balm.

Whatever you want to do with this Word now, to the person who's hearing it, I ask you to take that Word and apply it, and if a sword is necessary, apply that sword and cut deeply. If you want to motivate and encourage, Lord, then take it and soothe and heal. But I want you to take this Word, and I want you to shake up those who hear it.

I want you to stir them up. I want you to motivate them. I want you to challenge them, and I want you to bring this network, your body, into a place of harmony in your love and unity in you, Lord, that this world has never seen.

In the name of Jesus now, I ask you to confirm your Word to the hearers and to do what you've done, what you want to do, that the Word will go forth, will not come back empty, but will accomplish what you sent it to do. I ask you, Lord, to get rid of guilts. I ask you to get rid of anger and bitterness and hurts of the past, where people have been hurt by others and don't want to be part of the network because of the hurt that they got from fellow members of the network.

Those who've been taken advantage of and don't want to relate to your body anymore because of that. I ask you to heal those hurts. I ask you to mend the broken fences, to bring your people together into unity and harmony in such a wonderful way in your life.

It's only you can do it. Holy Spirit, I ask you to do that now. I ask you to take this Word as one small tool to help accomplish that.

May you be glorified in your church. May you be glorified in your body. May you be glorified in your network.

I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

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